endings | Member Posts

stonepicnicking_okapi

I thought this song was a Beach Boys song.

Watch on YouTube

rekishi

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

vriddy

In my quest for a grammar checker that doesn't flirt with generative AI, either in doing genAI analysis you don't want or feeding your words to their training data, I thought I'd try Ellipsus Plus and their "Writing Insights".

This morning, I fed it about 10k words worth of fic I'll be posting soon. Hoping to throw into it a couple of chapters of both my original novels later during the week before the trial ends, too. I guess first, my bad: it doesn't look like this is actually a grammar checker. More like a style checker? But word echoes, sentence lengths, etc are still very useful things I try to fix during my final "proofreading" phase ahead of posting fic or sending a doc to beta-readers, and I liked a lot of their tools.

Also, please allow me to emphasise again how customer-friendly and user-friendly Ellipsus is: you don't need a credit card to start the 7-day trial. Not only that, but they offer a "lifetime" one-time payment plan if you don't want a subscription. And not only-not only that!! If you pick the subscription option, it builds up toward a lifetime licence, so after a couple of years the subscription ends and you own it. I can't think of any other subscription-based service that offers that (or if they do, it sure isn't as obvious and clear as Ellipsus makes it!)

Now, what worked well for me, and what I'm still unfortunately missing. Note that this is obviously based on my personal grammar and prose weaknesses.

The good!

I really like how it highlights all sentences e.g. if you click Preview on the passive voice section, you'll see all of the passive sentences -- and only them -- highlighted. So you can scroll and focus on those only.
Even though my computer is old, the reports and highlights load pretty fast! (I wouldn't modify stuff while the highlights are on, though)
Repetition in sentence starts: "'She' starts 3+ sentences in a row" -- I do need that check!
The word echoes are good. Again, it highlights all the sentences, with a darker highlight on the word repeated (like "around", which I apparently use way too much in smut). Note: I copy-pasted one chapter or scene at a time. I suspect the report might get overwhelming and not be as useful if you run it on a full novel or a very long doc.
The sentence lengths report is also great! This one highlights your entire text in 4 shades of blue (for short/medium/long/very long sentences), and it makes it easy to see where there's variety, and more importantly for me, where there are too many big ass long sentences. I do my best to break those up during editing (before that final proofreading pass!), but I always miss a few. It's super cool how obvious it is when you suddenly have an entire paragraph entirely dark in the middle. (Long-ass sentences probably don't help with my pacing issues btw XD)
Note that the passive voice check isn't very good (a lot of active sentences with the verb "to be" picked up, e.g. "We're fighting, then?") but that's fine and pretty common with these checks in my experience. It's still an easy report to scan through.
The adverbs and repeated phrases reports are nice for a quick scan too. I didn't go in-depth with the adverbs, mostly checking there weren't too many repetitions, but for the repeated phrases I nearly always modified something when I had 4-word (or more!) repeated phrases, so it's quite neat.

The bad? Well. Many of the actual grammar bits, unfortunately, but that's on me!

Turns out Insights is not actually advertised as a grammar checker, that was my misunderstanding. Whoops.

Stuff I can mitigate

( Read more... )

Real problems I do need a grammar checker to help with :(

( Read more... )

I was building this list for myself as I tried it all out, then figured I might as well make a post out of it so I can refer back to it later? It's also a handy list of stuff to check as I continue on my quest for grammar checkers. What tools do you use for grammar? Any rec under the "no thanks AI actually" column? Or tips to remember the rules better in the first place? ;) Then again, some of my problems are rule issues, but just as often it's just distracted typos that happen regardless of knowledge...

Current Mood: studious

althea_valara

communal_creators is now open for sign-ups! The round runs from September 15th to October 14th (with make-up days allowed for anyone observing religious holidays/whatever during the round) and the community welcomes ALL creativity! We love to cheer each other on, and the Discord has been active recently with new and returning folks, eager to get started.

smallweb is hosting Small Web September again! Here's your chance to chat and commiserate with others working on their small web sites.

I will be participating in both, and yes, counting my smallweb activity for Communal Creators. Come join me!

stonepicnicking_okapi

Gosh. What a month. Of things happening, not happening, unhappening.

I would like to be better at reflection. Looking back. Learning from mistakes, from the past, from anything.

The happening.

The best thing that happened was hosting

bethctg and going to the BTS concert with her. A highlight of the year and, really, of the past five years.

I don't take photos of myself except for administrative purposes (IDs, mandatory profile photos, etc). There are no photos of me and boys, for example, or their father after Minor was born, but I felt so good about myself with her and with what we were doing that I did take a selfie on the way home from the concert. This is a very big deal. I even took a photo with her. And let her take a photo of me (which I deleted later, but still). A former coworker texted me about the concert and I actually sent her the selfie. This is something I have never done in my life. I will take it as a sign of healing.

And

bethctg got to chat about things and I talked about things I've never talked about, and it was really nice.

The unhappening and not happening.

And then, gosh, the Chris Brown incident and I just dropped it all. Like 48 hours after having the time of my life. And I haven't gone back. I still listen to agust D's music, but I haven't listened to any BTS music since the incident and have blocked them 99% from my algorithm. I was in Target and rolled by a sign and stopped and went back. V is spokesmodel for Champion athleticwear. It was like seeing an ex at the mall. I just went 'huh. and went on my way. I don't really understand my own reaction. I suppose everything really does have a season. Maybe I will be back one day? Probably not.

I was going to start another soap opera but that's not happening. So, among the unhappening, is the ficcery.

Word Count for August: 1864 (I guess it's better than July which was ZERO!). I need 60k to reach my GYWO goal. Spook Me/Halloween, Kinktober, NaNoWriMo (maybe if I think of an idea) and/or Xmas.

More happenings

I stood up for myself on Wednesday with my client the Hoarder and told her I had reached my limit (for the shift). I was proud of myself for setting a boundary even though she tried to cross it after I set it.

And I have been doing this weight loss program for 6 months and haven't lost any weight yet. So I took a deep breath and submitted a request for help in the helpline. It was really difficult but I did it.

So I am getting better at setting boundaries, better at asking for help instead of just suffering in silence, better at letting go of things that no longer serves me, and a teeny tiny bit more comfortable in my own skin.

Gosh.

We'll see what September brings.

hunningham

I am back from the Fringe. I need to write something about what I saw, just so it doesn't disappear into the mists of memory and end up as "did fringe, saw some good stuff, IDK what". But not tonight. Tonight I'm tired. Words, reviews, introspections, all an effort.

I stayed with my mother, and that was more difficult than my stay back in July. She's recovering well, getting back to her old self, and I'm realising just how much time I spend being completely mute when I'm with her. She wants to talk and to tell me things, and my role is to listen and to agree. This can be difficult (for example - "your father was a pathological liar, he couldn't help himself") and I escape into a book if possible, or by going to bed early if all else fails. And it hurts her, but I'm struggling to fix or change.

Anyway, good to be home, good to see H again after a fortnight and things will be better after I've slept. I have a day and half at home and then we're away for a fortnight in Ireland.

vriddy

General status:

Line editing: I had a few GYWO articles around improving prose in my dreamwidth memories, so I kinda tried to create a checklist from that and adjusting it to my needs as I edit the LeopardTree fic. Even without GYWO access, this Tumblr essay covers a lot and one could do worse than compressing it into a list! Making my own list of weak annoying words I abuse, too (grab, move, make...). So far so good, though it's nowhere as joyful as the structural edits were for the Soul Thief!! (Still chasing that editing high XD) I guess by forcing myself to actually rework my sentences or find synonyms rather than just go "Urgh! Grabbing again!" I'm hoping the stronger words will come to me more naturally over time, rather than remain stuck in my passive vocabulary. One can hope (and experiment ;)).

Cursed Witch feedback: I reread all the feedback and wrote a big thoughtdump post, which as I hoped took the thoughts of my mind to make space for other things. The conversations in the comments also turned out really helpful, I'm still turning a few replies in my head. Whatever happens next, though, I need to let it rest for longer.

BBTP smut: I finished the maid smut one-shot, but editing it is taking more time than expected, especially considering the upcoming September 1st deadline...! I haven't written or edited smut in a long time. I still hope to make it in time for bbtp_challenge though!

Projects:

Line edits for the LeopardTree fic (K-9). Still needs to be proofread, but also it stands at 7971 words now so I clearly must try and find where to add 29 words... Perhaps the kissing could use a bit more flourish? XD
Cursed Witch (OW) contemplations XD
Finishing and now editing the maid!Ren smut fic (K-9)

Current Mood: okay

svgurl

sapphic-september is a multi fandom daily prompt event that is focused on f/f ships that takes place in September

soulmark-september is a soulmate themed prompt challenge that will take place in September

whumptember is month long whump themed prompt based event in September

ljfriends is a community where you can try to find and reconnect with old Livejournal friends

ficinabox, a multifandom exchange where you are signing up to create 10k of works with possible various medium options, is still open for sign-ups until August 30th, 9:59PM Eastern.

ififitsifics, a multifandom exchange with focus on cats of all kinds (house cats, cat-persons, people transformed into cats) is still open for sign-ups until August 31st, 10AM BST. More info, including links on where to sign-up, is HERE.

thestoryinside, a challenge where you are paired up with someone and pick three books off their TBR based off the voted for themes and vice versa, is open for September sign-ups until the end of August 31st.

bbtp_challenge is back for its 20th round of Bring Back the Porn Challenge. On September 1st, post something porny to your journal or favorite archive and then go back to the community and drop off a link.

Stuffed With Love is a multifandom incest exchange. Sign-ups are open and will close on September 6th, midnight Eastern Time.

minutia_r is running Multifandom Poetry Fest, a prompt fest for poetry for all fandoms.

spiralicious

Get to Know Me

This weekend I am:
Babysitting my sister's dog

My current location is:
The Couch

I'd like my teleporter to take me to:
A mall with at least a Spirit Halloween, a Bath & Body Works, and a functioning food court

Three items in my bag at all times:
(Technically, my wallet. I don't have an everyday carry bag) library card, metal promotional bottle opener that looks like a credit card, & flat wheel of screwdriver heads

Dream Halloween vacation:
Getting to do Halloween events at both Universal & Disney. (It's says dream, I am dreaming big!)

(Modified from HalloweenXO's Instagram story templates)

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: from francis with love

spiralicious

Get to Know Me

Something I'm happy about today:
Made ahead breakfast burritos in the freezer

Something I'm looking forward to this week:
I was looking forward to the "Not All Fishermen Wear Pants" miniature workshop. It has happened now and it was fun.

Something (or someone) I'm grateful for:

vexed_wench

Something I know how to do well:
Paint

Something I want to learn to do:
Be more in the moment

(Modified from HalloweenXO's Instagram story templates)

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: from francis with love

stonepicnicking_okapi

Veering into scrapbook territory more than I usually do. I had a cancelled shift on Tuesday, so I collaged with the map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I saved from my day trip to NYC at the beginning of August.

spiralsheep

Watched

- Virginia Woolf's Night and Day (which isn't Woolf's and probably better on screen because of that): a feel-good bildungsroman about a middle-class girl in the 1910s with lots of emoting close-ups from a cast of excellent actors. Not substantial or meaningful beyond encouraging middle-class girls to "follow their star" but that's good enough. 3.5/5

- Minions & Monsters: feel-good film with many movie refs, especially to early Hollywood (inc silents). The world-devouring baddie is an orange blob, lol. 5/5

- The Summer Book: a surprisingly good adaptation of Tove Jansson's lyrical book, which I think is excellent but wouldn't have thought of as filmic (although Jansson was interested in film as an art form). The movie concentrates on exploring a child's discovery of human mortality in tandem with her grandmother's resistance to ageing and growing acceptance of her own inevitable demise, which sounds grim but I found mildly moving and uplifting. Glenn Close is outstanding as the gran but Emily Matthews the child actor playing the granddaughter also shines. 4/5

- My Mother's Wedding: three middle-class sisters, a Royal Navy officer, a movie actor, and a nurse, return to their childhood home to attend their twice-widowed mother's third wedding. Slice of life family drama, which is a good example of its type but not especially memorable apart from a lesbian character being central rather than peripheral. 4/5

To Watch

The September arthouse excursion will likely be either The Incomer (trailer link) or Late Fame (trailer). Although I suspect Late Fame will be objectively the better film I obviously favour the batshit Scottish comedy with Michelle Gomez doing comedic evil (why, yes, I have never got over Green Wing) but I reckon I'll be outvoted by the Willem Dafoe fans. Which would you choose?

Also want to see Tell Everyone (trailer).

What's on your cinematic To Watch list?

firecat

”You Don’t Need a New Mac, You Need a New Keyboard” by Alex Blake

This article annoyed me, because I prefer mechanical keyboards but I’ve never had one that lasted more than a year before developing repeating keys and dead keys. My Apple keyboards have lasted longer. If you have a mechanical one that has lasted, what make/model is it?

PS/FYA: Alex boasts he’s been “dabbling in Apple tech since he first got an iPhone 3GS.” That was released in 2009. Stop making me feel old, kid. —firecat, dabbling in Apple tech since 1984

vriddy

I realised I was ruminating on the only pieces of Cursed Witch feedback I remembered from the second round of beta-reader feedback, so I took a couple of hours to reread it all this morning. Now I have more points to ~~ruminate on~~ contemplate ;)

In general, I'm paying the price for early choices. Obviously, a couple of themes poked their nose out as I was planning-writing-rewriting this story, but the big question that drove my efforts from the start wasn't related to theme or story. It was: "Can I finish a novel-length story, including editing it?" A lot of decisions followed from that. The story is single PoV. The stakes are very personal, not epic/world-impacting. I didn't give a lot of space to the characters around the main two (although I believe that last rewrite helped with making most of them feel like they have their own lives and goals, too). I also ended the story as soon as I could find a decent stopping point, so it's a bit short for a novel. It means earlier events are not as well connected to later ones, or it's not obvious they will become relevant in the sequels. I also made the beginner mistake of keeping everything a mystery until close to the end, leading to Reveal Fatigue XD This improved a bit in the last rewrite (after the first round of beta feedback), but probably still not enough.

Should I accept that this was a learning project, cut my losses, and move on? Where does the sunk cost fallacy plays in vs what might just be lack of persistence or stamina? I'm also pondering what I wrote vs what I enjoy reading, since there's a couple of places with a mismatch.

I got so, so much helpful feedback though, and it's so cool and such an honour to see people thinking so deeply about my story. After rereading all the feedback, I feel more motivated to try to fix it rather than throw my hands in the air. It feels possible even if, as usual, it will be a Ton Of Work (tm) if I do. Also, it's interesting that none of the stuff I was still worried about by the end of the last edits came up (or just once as an aside), so getting an external perspective was very much needed.

( Massive navel-gazing about the story and the things I'm torn about, including, again, structural issues. This is long! )

In all honesty, before I re-read the feedback and started writing this post, I was sort of leaning toward a full rewrite. Now, I'm learning toward clearer early stakes, rejigging the order of reveals again, and perhaps ending the story later so the impact of the early events and characters we meet is clearer -- but that's going to be a huge rewrite too... so if I'm gonna put in the work anyway, should I change the story to bring it closer to my strengths?! (aka, more playful) But then, isn't it just telling a different story... Either way, I don't have the moral strength for that amount of rework just yet, so I'm just going to set it aside for a bit longer. I'm tempted to try the new way of doing structural edits method I used with ST on it, but even to do that I need to start with my goals for the story, so I need to be clear with myself what those are, first. These bullet points lead to very, very different paths.

Glad I did my feedback reread because it also helped remind me of the good bits! And I saw so many moments and sentences I like from rereading the inline feedback, too. On the other hand, that makes decision-making more difficult XD But also, writing this up helped me come up with the "episodic structure" insight. I was reading fewer novels and watching/reading more animanga when I planned and wrote (and rewrote) this story, and I think that influenced how I structured it more heavily than I realised. It still doesn't tell me what I want to do with this story next, but I'm finding the framing useful. Not sure "writing the rest of the season" is enough because it's still awkward in novel form, e.g. there's some repetitiveness (which was noted in the feedback. I was trying to vary it up to show the inescapability, but at a high-level it's the same scene in different flavours happening a lot I suppose). The setup is not connected to what will happen later as smoothly (in animanga, it's not uncommon for plot threads to be dropped for half a season (or longer!) while an arc focuses on some other problem or characters, but it's more confusing in novel format imo, at least the way I ended up doing it.) I still have a lot to think about. Though feel free to give me even more to think about, if something came to mind ;)

Current Mood: thinking

vriddy

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Commented on booknook (books!)

Commented on senzenwomen (incredible women!)

Commented on bnha_fans (heroes!)

Posted on getyourwordsout (writing spaces!)

Signal boosts:

Stumbled upon makeashrine via straightforwardly. For anyone who's been considering building that kind of fansite but not sure where to start and/or looking for like-minded people... :)
Via promoting, ljfriends is a new add-me comm for people looking to reconnect with their old LJ friends.

mocha

vriddy

Someone podficced a story of mine! For

summerpodficswap!!! This is so cool! This is so cool?! Omg it is so cool!! I wasn't taking part in the event! Their voice is lovely and soothing and they picked a fic with the three silly guys from this icon. Aaah

[podfic] Slacking at work (25 words) by amperslasher
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Shirakumo Oboro/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Sick Shirakumo Oboro, Domestic Fluff, Shirakumo Oboro Lives, Post-Canon, Cuddle Pile, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: Download
Summary:

Oboro never gets sick, or so he insists.

Podfic of Slacking at work by Vridelian.

Aaah I don't know I'm feeling very in love with Fandom right now. I have a blanket permission statement on my profile, and this helped someone with their exchange experience, and I feel like I got a present, too.

But also, this is one of the fic I wrote last year when I used hurt/comfort prompts to break myself out of my writer's block. It's not a fic that got much reaction, nor is it about a ship that is all that popular (comparatively for BNHA, anyway! Also, polyships usually be like that!). I don't know, I'm feeling very fond. Writing these hurt/comfort fic was healing for me, and it's utterly lovely to see something joyful bloom from one of these seeds a year later, too.

stonepicnicking_okapi

I failed to mark it and now I can't find it, but today's word comes from I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle, which is the DW bookclub book for August and it's the verb form of... ...

hod

to bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.

It's tagged 'intransitive, Scottish, and obsolete.'

That sounds about right. I distinctly remember it was a verb form. More info from Wkitionary:

Probably an alteration of hot (“(Northern England, Scotland) large basket for carrying earth, etc.”), from Middle English hott, hote, hotte (“large basket or pannier for carrying earth, etc.; unit of measure for grain; hut or shed (perhaps originally of wattlework); lump of dirt (?)”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman and Old French hote, hotte (“large basket carried on the back”) (modern French hotte (“carrying basket”)), from Frankish *hotta (“basket”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *hud- (“to shake”) (see further at etymology 1), ultimately an onomatopoeia of the swaying movement of such a basket (compare Middle Dutch hotten (“to jolt; shake”)).

This is a hod (noun) carried over the shoulder.

stonepicnicking_okapi

My favorite of many favorites

Watch on YouTube

stonepicnicking_okapi

1. The boys are back in school. Minisculus is less than enamored with middle school but that's to be expected.

2. For the first time, I might be in danger of not meeting my 150k GYWO word count goal. I am hoping Hallowe'en and Xmas will help. I am just not interested or inspired. I finished my soap opera in mid June and did a ficlet for Watson's birthday, but that's about it.

3. Minor got blackmailed by someone on a messaging app wanting $50 to not spread doctored photos to his friends. What a world. I didn't even know the app he is using. But he handled it himself. Apparently the app administrator(s) located the blackmailer account in Iran!

4. I signed Minisculus up for art (meaning drawing, painting, etc) without realizing it was a 1 quarter course, not a full year course (chorus for Minor had been a year-long so I thought all fine arts courses were) so they filled in the rest of the quarters with other things. Now he has Theatre (!!! If there is a child in the universe less inclined toward performance it is my second born). And then there is what we used to call Home Economics and now they call Family and Consumer Science and then General Music. We'll see how it goes.

5. So there is a gap left by my dropping of the BTS fandom, and I am filling it with some online puzzles which I found via @snowynight's post: https://snowynight.dreamwidth.org/323738.html

The one I like best is called Squardle which is a word search. https://squaredle.app/

I also play Quordle (solving 4 wordles at once): https://www.merriam-webster.com/games/quordle/#/

And clues by Sam, which is a logic puzzle: https://cluesbysam.com/

[sorry for the formatting. DW is being weird today or I forgot how to do stuff or both]

Also filling the gap is this woman who takes care of a pair of capybaras named Cheesecake and Pumpkin (among other animals) in Florida (warning: pun/dad joke)

Watch on YouTube